She looked quickly at Haid, only to find his gaze fixed on the wrecked console. An understandable reaction, but of no use to her now. She needed another option.
"Cane, those fighters are going to try to deflect us. Come with me."
Haid came alert at once and took half a step forward. "He doesn't have a palmlink."
"He won't need it. With his reaction rate, manual will do. Remember the Wunderkind in Palasian System ... "
Turning her back on the Intelligence officers, she led Cane to the targeting console and rapidly showed him how to work it. The Dato cannon operated on the same principle used for decades; a complicated screen gave vectors and positions of the fighters plus views from various points on the hull. The weapons AI coordinated the full range of data and assessed optimum targets. On the manual setting, however, direct real-time imaging and a simple control system, designed for rapid use during an emergency, fired the cannon.
Cane adapted quickly. Within moments, fierce bolts of energy stabbed at the Armada squadron, picking one of them out of the sky and turning it into ashes.
"Three minutes," she said, turning back to De Bruyn. "Care to negotiate now?"
"Never," said De Bruyn, although she seemed less sure of herself.
Bound into the chairs on either side of her, Absenger and Chase kept their silence. Absenger's face was pale and his gaze fixed on the main screens, but Chase, despite his obvious fear, remained alert, straining at his makeshift bonds and swinging his attention from De Bruyn to the screens and back again.
"Even apart from dying," Roche said, "you know that it would be in your best interest to give me the codes. You're as afraid of the Wunderkinds as we are. Let us go, and we can track the one in the Palasian System for you."
"Why should you want to do that?" said De Bruyn, keeping her eyes firmly on Roche.
"Because we'd like to find out as much as we can about Cane's origins," said Roche. "And what better way of doing so than through one of his own kind?"
De Bruyn snorted, but her eyes flicked back to the screen. "And what does Intelligence stand to gain from all of this?"
"Any information we pick up along the way can be relayed to you here. That way, you won't be risking any of your own people."
"No?" De Bruyn sneered. "You'll be roaming through the COE unchecked. Who's to say what you'll do?"
"If you leave us alone, we'll return the favour. All you have to do is give us the Box, and we'll leave." A muffled rumble echoed through the ship as the fighters fired upon the Marauder. Then another rumble, this time as one of the fighters came too close and paid the price. "Delay any longer, and we'll have to start negotiating for repairs as well."
"Listen to her, Page!" Absenger pleaded. "She's making sense. You know she is!"
"No!" Chase's sudden shout took them all by surprise. "We can't risk letting HQ fall into the hands of people like this! Better to see it destroyed than perverted — "
"And leave the Commonwealth wide open to the Dato Bloc?" said Absenger desperately. "Without Intelligence, the entire defense network will crumble."
"What difference would that make? With the Box in control of the network anyway — "
"You're missing something very important here," said Haid, stepping forward, urgency not only in his voice but his whole manner. "With the Box, we would have the power to subvert the Intelligence command core, true — but that doesn't necessarily mean we will. The ruin of the Commonwealth is not the reason we came here."
"Spare us the obvious lies," Chase rasped.
"I'm telling you the truth." Haid took another step closer, looming over the captive head of Intelligence. "The Box was ready to take over before you even arrived onboard. It could have destroyed your ships — and HQ — without using the Ana Vereine's artillery."
Perspiration was beginning to bead along Chase's forehead, but if he was aware of it, he showed no sign. "So why didn't you?"
"Because I didn't want to start a war," Haid spat. "This is a Dato ship, and word would have soon spread that — "
Further rumblings cut him off as the fighters made another assault on the ship.
On the main screen, the image of Intelligence HQ grew larger by the second. Roche noted the time before impact: barely a minute left. Her heart pounded inside her chest as the enormity of her action came home to her. The Box had sacrificed the entire crew of a frigate just to save her, but its action paled to insignificance against what she herself had set in motion. What made her think she had the right?
Even if De Bruyn gave them the codes that very instant, she doubted that the Box could act in time to save them.
"How very noble of you," scoffed Chase, the show of bravado negated by the increasing quaver in his voice. "You who are threatening the lives of every person aboard the station! You haven't given us a single reason to trust you on anything!"
"What's the point?" Haid sighed and turned away, dismissing Chase's disbelief with a shake of his head. He made no move to look at the screens. "How long until we hit, Morgan?"
Roche looked at the image of Intelligence HQ that had grown to fill the view. The massive docking bays and surrounding superstructure were now clearly discernible. Rapid bands of false colour ran across the scene as communications AIs began to wind back the magnification, compensating for the Ana Vereine's ever-mounting velocity.
For the briefest of moments, the horror of what she had done threatened to overcome her, but she fought the feeling down. What was done was done, she told herself. Now it had to be seen through.
"Forty seconds," she said, amazed by the calm in her voice. "If you're going to change your mind, De Bruyn, don't wait much longer."
De Bruyn mumbled something beneath her breath.
"What was that?" Roche said, leaning forward.
The head of Strategy raised her head and glared at Roche. "The game begins. Satisfied now?"
Roche stepped away from the ruined console and glanced around her, hardly daring to hope. On the screen, Intelligence HQ seemed to race at them faster than the time allowed.
"Box? Can you hear me, Box?"
"Yes, Morgan, I can hear you perfectly. Although something strange has — "
"Not now, Box. We're in trouble. Look at our course: you have to do something to save us, and fast!"
"Yes, I see. Immediate action would seem to be in order."
"We're inside the hypershield horizon!" she added urgently. "You can't — "
"I know where we are, Morgan."
She waited a second, but the Box said nothing more. The deck remained stable beneath her feet; the engines didn't change their rate or direction of thrust.
"Didn't you hear me, Box? You have to do something. I'm ordering you to!"
"And of course I will. Why the sudden panic? We have plenty of time."
Roche spun to face the main screen. The view of Intelligence HQ fluctuated wildly as the Marauder's velocity continued to climb. The space around the station had begun to red-shift and no longer showed any stars. As she watched with a strange mixture of fascination and terror, the communications AIs began to lose the adjustment battle. The vast, shadowy bulk of Intelligence HQ grew to completely occlude the galaxy behind it. And still the station grew, individual docks and bays becoming visible at the heart of the screen.
There was less than twenty seconds to impact.
"What's going on?" Haid joined her at the console. His face was a mask of confusion. "Why aren't we changing course?"
"I don't know!" Her fists clenched in frustration, and the question she formed was barely a whisper. "What the hell are you doing, Box?"
Ten seconds ...
"Please assume crash positions," said the Box. Then, to Roche alone:
She pushed a stunned Haid down into the nearest chair, then fell into the one beside him, clicked a restraint harness closed across her chest and checked briefly that he had done the same.
Five second
s ...
"We're not going to make it," Chase said softly. Trapped in his seat, directly across from her, his eyes were wide and staring. On the weapons display to the right of him, the surviving fighters could be seen wheeling away to escape the impact. Below the screen, still hunched over the weapons console, Cane at last lifted his hands from the controls. He turned and looked at Roche.
De Bruyn's bitter laughter, strung on the edge of hysteria, cut the tension like a knife. "All for nothing!" she screamed. "All your lies!"
Two seconds ...
Roche's fingers dug into the armrests of her chair. Across from her, Cane stared ... unconcerned.
One second ...
The solid mass of Intelligence HQ exploded out of the viewscreen and —
— disappeared.
The Ana Vereine shuddered from nose to stern. Roche exhaled in one explosive gasp, the nauseating aftereffects of what felt like a short slow-jump twisting her insides in a knot. But it couldn't have been that. It wasn't possible.
The screen showed nothing but stars.
For a long moment there was only silence on the bridge of the Ana Vereine,
"What ... ?" Haid began.
"We jumped past it," Roche said at last, softly and half to herself. "We must have — somehow."
She hauled herself to her feet as the Ana Vereine's engines finally began to kill both its headlong velocity and its spin. The tension drained from her arms and shoulders, leaving her feeling weak. She hadn't realised she had been gripping her armrests so tightly.
She sagged backward against the consoles and turned to face the others. Haid's grin echoed the one spreading across her own face. "We made it."
"Box!" said De Bruyn, straining forward against her bonds. "Silence between — !"
But Cane was already at her side. He clamped his hand firmly across De Bruyn's mouth, silencing her instantly.
"Box," said Roche. "You are hereby ordered to disregard all commands from Page De Bruyn — especially any containing the words 'silence', 'between', and 'thoughts'. Is that understood?"
"Perfectly, Morgan," replied the Box smoothly — and Cane removed his hand from around De Bruyn's mouth.
"And, Box ... ?"
"Yes, Morgan?"
"Just how the hell did you do that?"
There was a brief silence before the Box answered. Roche could almost hear it laughing to itself at her expense. "I assume," it said at last, "that you refer to the fact that we appear to have slow-jumped across a Riem-Perez horizon?"
"Damn right," said Haid. "It can't be done. Our anchor drive should have blown and taken us with it."
"Correct." The Box paused. "So the obvious conclusion you should draw is that we didn't slow-jump."
Roche frowned. "Then — ?"
Before she could complete the question, the ship shuddered and she felt again the sensation of slow-jumping deep in her gut. She turned in puzzlement to study the screen. There, off to one side, close but no longer threatening, Intelligence HQ reappeared.
"I don't believe it," she said, realisation finally dawning.
"I had no alternative," said the AI. "If the ship was unable to slow-jump inside the hyper shield, the hypershield generator had to be removed."
"You jumped the entire station?"
"Naturally. It moved, and we stayed behind. I programmed the jump to give us just enough space and time to clear the shield. That way, there was no chance of it colliding with us when it returned."
Roche still couldn't believe it, and by the look of his face, Haid couldn't either.
"So you did infiltrate HQ, then?" he said.
"Eventually. It took longer than I anticipated, even though all I really needed was enough time to take over the hypershield generator and reprogram it to perform a single slow-jump. Approximately thirty seconds in all. I can finish the job now, if you like."
Roche shook her head. "Later, Box. At your leisure. We have other things to worry about now."
Across the room, Chase found his voice. He said simply, "The thing's mad."
Roche stared at him for a moment, wondering if she didn't agree. Then she looked at De Bruyn. Like Haid's, her face was lit by naked amazement at what the AI had done. She returned Roche's gaze, and her expression suddenly narrowed. Roche knew that look. De Bruyn's mind was already alive with possibilities — and she wanted control.
"Given the current situation, then," the Box said, "have you any further instructions?"
"Yes." Roche regarded the captives with unease; even now — especially now — De Bruyn wasn't prepared to admit defeat. "I want these three taken somewhere safe until we get back to HQ. There must be a brig aboard. Arrange some drones for escort; Haid and Cane will take them there. We don't want any other nasty surprises too soon."
"I presume, then, that we are returning to the COE Intelligence HQ?"
"By normal space, this time. Do you have a problem with that?"
"Absolutely not," said the Box. "In fact, it fits in perfectly with my plans."
Roche shrugged aside the Box's reference to its own purpose; there would be time later to deal with that. "We still have some negotiating to do before we leave. Isn't that right, Absenger?"
The liaison officer, his face still pale, hesitated before nodding.
Five Dato suits marched into the bridge and took positions behind the captives while Cane began untying their bonds. De Bruyn stared white-lipped at Roche, hatred flaring in her eyes. As De Bruyn's restraints fell to the floor, she stood slowly, purposefully, and rubbed at her wrists.
"This isn't over yet," the head of Strategy said, her eyes locked on Roche. "Not by any means, Commander."
Haid ushered them from the bridge. "You've had your chance," he said. "The sooner you accept that Morgan has won, the better. In case you hadn't noticed ... "
His words faded into the distance as he marched the three away.
Roche stared around the empty room — at the discarded makeshift ropes, the warped life support vent, the ruined navigation console — and the relieved grin faded from her face.
Won what? she wondered. Freedom, yes, and all the uncertainty that went with it. A ship she didn't really know how to fly, not properly. Companions for a time, including an ex-mercenary, a rogue epsense adept who once worked for the Commerce Artel, and a genetically modified Human designed by a long-dead government possibly to commit genocide on the entire Pristine Caste ...
Roche sank into the nearest seat with a sigh, smiling at the thought — and the fact that she found it to be strangely comforting.
Epilogue
DBMP Ana Vereine
'955.01.01 EN
0010
New Year's Hour came and went across the Commonwealth — except perhaps in its farthest reaches, where timekeeping was notoriously imprecise. A thousand different religions and cultures with wildly varying means welcomed the date as they always did, little caring about events elsewhere in the galaxy. United by a calendar, but separated by the moment itself, the age-old celebration of the cycle of life was the first thing on everyone's mind, if only for a few hours.
Roche, however, didn't feel like celebrating. Roaming through the empty corridors of the Ana Vereine, she was content to let her mind wander — and wonder.
To begin with, she'd simply explored, familiarising herself with her new home. A rough overview, a sense of the character of the ship, was all she wanted — and all she could hope for, given that a systematic exploration of the entire vessel would have taken weeks. So, from the spacious bridge, with its distinctive Dato decor consisting mainly of pastel browns and soft lighting, to the cramped warren in the Marauder's innermost depths, she had strolled at random, letting chance play a major role in what she uncovered.
At first. The more she looked, however, the more curious she became.
She'd never before seen a ship quite like the An
a Vereine. Yes, the Marauder was most likely a prototype, with innovations she hadn't encountered before. For a start, there were cameras everywhere — too many for even the most security-conscious ship's master. In order to support the vast amount of data gathered by these and other sensors, extensive information networks snaked through and around every system, both inside and outside the ship. Exactly what happened to the data she hadn't worked out yet, although she was fairly certain that it all converged on one particular system. Perhaps when she discovered what that system was, or even its physical location, she would be able to guess what it was for. Until then, no matter where she went, or how irrational the impulse was, she felt like she was being watched.
Then there were the floor-mounted holographic image generators. She had come across at least a dozen of them so far, in all sorts of strange places, including the bridge, the command module, the mess hall and the captain's scutter — places where conventional viewtanks were already located. They obviously weren't a late addition to the ship's design, yet she couldn't fathom their purpose. The Dato Bloc wasn't renowned for excessive redundancy.
Likewise with the extra life support system revealed by a quick scan of the ship's schematics. A system, judging by its specifications, designed to support life in a liquid environment that matched none of the many Castes known in the galaxy. The closest match was with Pristine requirements — but who would want to spend their time floating completely submerged in fluid?
Lastly, there was the lack of an obvious captain's suite — which was lucky, she supposed, given that no firm hierarchy had been established among the ship's new occupants. Permanent quarters had yet to be assigned, although four suites had already been cleared on the officers' deck, ready for whoever wanted them. If they ended up choosing a captain, then he or she would have to do without the luxury usually granted the commanding officer of a warship.
Evergence: The Prodigal Sun Page 36